Answer: GOD

I counted the number of people that were killed by God in the Bible. I came up with 2,038,344. Now, of course that greatly underestimates God’s total kill score.  I only included those killings for which specific numbers are given.  There are many events in the Bible where no number of fatalities are given.  Noah’s flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the many plagues, famines, etc all are unknown variables, likely to push this number well over 30 million (see below).

Satan on the other is documented as killing only 10 people in the written text of the Bible.  Even those 10 are suspect, as God basically allows Satan to do the killings as part of a “bet” (Job’s family).  Don’t believe me?  Here’s the scripture:

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job … And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.

And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the LORD … put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house…And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. – Job 1:1-19

So there you have it.  Confused?  So am I.

Now to take this one step further, let’s put some real world numbers to the rest of God’s killings.

Sure makes you question that “All Loving God” stuff huh?

First let me back up by saying that I am a utilitarian.  What this means is that I do not believe morals exist because they are handed down by God or gods.  God might indeed exist, but thats not particularly relevant.  Instead, I believe moral rules, obligations and even political laws exist for a sole purpose: to increase human happiness and decrease suffering.    I distinguish this from pure hedonism or the philosophy of “if it feels good, do it.”  There are indeed many actions like taking drugs that feel good and might make you happy in the short term but in the long term cause more suffering and pain to self and others.  I also say God is irrelevant to the discussion because I feel if God exists, he too must be a utilitarian!  The reason is that I do not think a supremely intelligent being “who is love” would create moral rules or laws arbitrarily or for his own amusement.  God would not outlaw something “just because” or to test people’s faith.  He must have a reason.  With something like stealing or killing it is obvious that when people perform these actions that they cause misery and pain, so it would make sense that God would outlaw them.   But more on God and morality another time.  For now you will just have to agree or disagree with me that morality exists for a purpose (human happiness) and does not stand in its own right.   It is a means, not an end.

Secondly, I am not a moral relativist, at least not in the strictest sense of the word.   Moral relativism is the philosophy that morals are relative to either the culture or the individual.  What is right for one individual or society may not be right for another.  There is some truth to this.  C. S. Lewis in one of his books talks about modesty as being relative to the culture, such as the amount of skin that must be covered up and how much is allowed to be shown.  In one culture, a lot of skin must be covered up in another not as much.  The reason is that in the latter culture, people are used to seeing a lot of the human body and as such it does not incite feelings of lust or tempt people into unchasteness.  One could argue that this is in a sense “moral relativism” but Lewis would deny such a claim.   Or one could bring this down to the individual level.  It might be okay for you to drink, because you have a temperate personality and not prone to getting drunk, however it might be wrong for me to drink if I were a recovering alcoholic.  So there is some truth to that as well.

Moral relativism, despite elements of truth to it, has some obvious problems.  If morals are relative to the culture, and that culture believes its necessary to sacrifice the first born infant, is that morally acceptable?  In some cultures they still perform cliterectomies as part of a ritualistic coming of age ceremony.  Is it right to say that this is an acceptable practice within that culture and we should ignore it?  Or do we have an obligate as outsiders to step in and stop this from happening when possible?  If an individual believes no one should own personal property, does he have a right to steal my car?  There are countless examples where relative morality comes to conclusions  that we won’t feel comfortable with and would be difficult to create a society we’d want to live in.

So on the one hand, there are some areas where morality seems relative and others where it seems morality is relative and others where it seems it must be absolute.  What are we to make of this?  I believe the problem stems from blurring the lines between morals and values.  I define morals as the specific rules about what is right and wrong, such as “do not steal” or “do not commit adultery” to borrow from the ten commandments.  I define values as the things moral rules are defined to protect, those things that promote human happiness (remember, utilitarian here) and decrease human suffering and pain.  Values are such things as “truth”, “love”, “life”, “freedom”, etc.  Now my thesis here is that morals are generally relative to the time, place and situation, whereas values are absolute.   For example, nobody values killing for its own sake except the criminally insane.  Life is a human value, not death.  As such its an absolute.  However the moral rule might change depending on the situation.  We generally believe that it is okay to kill in self-defense..   So the rule, the moral, is relative to the situation.  Its okay to kill in self-defense, because doing so protects your own life and might also stop a murderer.  Its not okay to kill for fun.

What is interesting about this philosophy is that with the exception of the criminal psychopaths, we all share the same values.  You can see this in the pro-life versus the pro-choice debate.  Both groups ironically share the same values!  The pro-choice group believes that it is okay to terminate a pregnancy because the embryo prior to the first trimester does not feel pain and is not truly a human being yet, or perhaps they belive the embryo might feel some pain but this is very limited and better than the woman having to give birth to a child she can’t raise.  On the other hand, the pro-life groups feel that abortion is wrong because the embryo is developed enough to be considered a human being (perhaps at conception), does feel pain and should be protected.  Also many feel that abortion causes side-effects both physical and emotional that harm the woman.

These are admittedly simplified views of the two groups and there are other variations but they’ll suffice for my example.   I think it can be proven that both groups actually share the same values, they just disagree on the best moral rules to protect and promote those values.  Both groups believe in personal freedom and the preservation of life.  The pro-lifers would be just as against a government program forcing women to have babies and the pro-choicers would be just as against the government forcing women to have abortions the way China does currently.  The two groups disagree because the two values come into conflict in a way that is not obvious to resolve.  The pro-lifers believe that personal freedom must take a backseat to protect life and the pro-choicers believe the opposite or that human life isn’t in the picture yet to need to be preserved.

This has some interesting connotations.   First it means that moral rules, or at least some of them, are relative to the situation at hand.  This shouldn’t concern us.  This isn’t the same as saying morality is “whatever I feel like” or “whatever society says is good.”  We can judge one society or culture as being better than another based on the health, happiness and other values that we all share.  Of course, its difficult to judge your own culture and easy to misjudge someone else, but this should not dissuade us.  We should try to look objectively passed our own bias at other cultures, other points of view and ask, “does this work?”  Does this make people happy, keep them healthy, prevent disease, death and misery?

This also means moral rules can change depending on the time in history. One thousand years ago,  protection of the environment was not a big concern.  If the environment is as big of an issue as some scientists say it is, than we have a moral obligation to protect it, to change our personal habits as well as our political ones to protect our air, food, energy and climate.  This is a new moral concern, relative to our situation and point in history, but the values are the same – human health and happiness.  You may disagree that the environment is a big concern, but even the most ardent right wing extremist will hesitate to shout “Pollution is good!”  This is because we share the same values and just disagree on the rules.  Similarly, other moral concerns may fall by the wayside.  If for example, there was such an abundance of technology and production of goods that everything could easily free (Star Trek fans will recognize this theme) the moral need to protect wealth, business and property may no longer be a concern.  I’m not saying this will ever happen, but we could imagine it.

I think most people, even particularly religious people, have a sense of this utilitarian concept of morals versus values, even if they don’t express it.  Religious people will not very often say “its right because god says so, and thats that” except for the most extreme among them.  I had a conversation with a conservative Christian about whether premarital sex was morally acceptable.  He told me “if pre-marital and extra-marital sex were outlawed, sexually transmitted disease would be reduced dramatically or wiped out entirely.”   He did not attempt to persuade me on purely religious grounds but he was basically saying that we as human beings would be better off if we followed this moral rule.  Although I disagreed with him, its a point I can respect.  At that moment, we were sharing the same values, even if we differed slightly on the moral rules.

We often disagree on moral principles because it isn’t always obvious what the correct moral action happens to be.  I already mentioned the abortion and environmental debates as a examples of this as are other disagreements between liberals and conservatives.  Often,  two opposing sides will accuse the other as being amoral.  While I think there are definitely plenty of amoral political figures, I think the average person has a pretty decent moral compass, regardless of which camp they fall in.  I have met very moral liberals, conservatives, moderates, theists, atheists, agnostics, humanists and fundamentalists.  I have also met crooks of all flavors.   Most would agree on things like respect for others, hard work, pursuit of love and truth, protection of children, etc. are all values we should promote.  They just don’t always agree on exactly how to do that.    There are countless gray moral areas even in just day to day life.   I think the solution here is to stand outside our own personal biases and view morality as another scientific inquiry with the purpose of increasing happiness and protecting life.  Moral knowledge will need to be flexible and increase or change, rather than just basing it solely on religious grounds, or ignoring the questions entirely.

Anti-Science

Sometimes I’m just amazed at the lengths people will go to in order to protect their religious beliefs. In many cases, hard facts are staring people right in the face, and they will make up all kinds of excuses as to why the facts must be wrong. The sad part is, most of the time these facts are not in direct conflict with any scriptures. In most cases, they are in conflict with traditional lines of thinking which were derived in some form or another from the scriptures. One of the most irritating examples of this is Christians who insist the planet is only 6,000 to 10,000 years old. The Bible is very ambiguous in its historical account of the early days, but that doesn’t seem to stop people from trying to piece it together and come up with ridiculous ideas. Then of course, being the manipulators they are, try to force other good hearted Christians to believe it by making those people feel like if they don’t agree then they are not only disagreeing with them, but disagreeing with the Bible itself. And like the sheep they are, they usually go along with it. Then they try to force schools not to teach scientific facts and theories and hold society back for a few more hundred years to live in ignorance. Now, I’m not saying scientists are always right. For example, when it comes down to it I consider myself a creationist. There have been no proven or even theorized workable solutions to explain where life originally came from on this planet. (despite what some athiest will tell you) which only re-enforces my belief in God. But just because some species may have changed along the way, or evolved, doesn’t have anything to do with God, or the historical events in the Bible. Being how vague the book of Genesis is, I can’t even see why people feel the need to interperate it literally. Even if it were eventually proven that abiogenesis is possible (life from no life) that would still not preclude the possibility that it was all part of God’s plan. So what this essentially tells me is that people who fight against scientific progress are essentially scared that their faith will be proven wrong. In many cases, since this is driven by people in high religious places, it isn’t fear of going to hell that motivates them, rather fear that they will be made a fool of, or loose their power over people. Being that I’m always searching for “the truth” I’m open to any ideas to be considered, analyzed, and at some point make a decision whether it is right or wrong based on all available facts. This makes me one of the most secure people when it comes to my faith. I know I’m right because I’ve examined all the evidence available. Other people live in a closet and block out anything they think might contradict their faith and so when it comes down to it, even though they may seem like they have strong faith, it is quite the opposite. You should always change faith to fit the facts, not change facts to fit faith. If the facts are in question, then do more research, ask more questions, have more debates. Eventually the truth can be known.

Religion as a Hobby

Everybody has something they are passionate about, and something that they are good at. I’m passionate about science and technology, some people it is cars, others it is football. Of course, some people it is religion. Now, in their mind they feel like they are just doing as the Lord commands, by reading the Bible constantly, going to church all the time, watching TV shows about God, talking with people on the internet about religious matters, etc. But the truth is, most people who do this are not motivated by a sense of a commandment by God, rather because they actually enjoy it. And you know what, that is fine with me. The problem is, not everybody is like that. And sometimes people confuse this enjoyment with loyalty to God or being a better person. For example, you might have one person who is very “into” his religion and another person who goes to church occasionally, or maybe never, but is still a firm believer. The second person may spend his time engaged in sports or working on cars in his garage. But put those same two people to the test and see where their convictions lie such as finding a wallet on a park bench, or helping others in need, or having somebody place a gun to their head and say “do you believe in God?” Then I think you’d find very little correlation between the results of these tests and how often they went to church. So why is it that the people who’s hobby is religion have to always look down on the people who do not have such a hobby? By the way, people like that are often social outcasts, sometimes even at church. Yes, it is possible to be too religious even at church. if your only hobby is religion, and that is all you can talk about, it is hard to form relationships with other people, even other people of your same religion.